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Opportunities in the Education Market

For most print service providers, their biggest challenge is identifying and capturing new clients--especially in this highly competitive marketplace. One often overlooked strategy is looking to
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For most print service providers, their biggest challenge is identifying and capturing new clients--especially in this highly competitive marketplace. One often overlooked strategy is looking to vertical markets for new revenue opportunities. To better assess your capabilities to serve vertical markets, you need to first understand their behaviors and service needs.

This presentation on the Education Market is part of a series of PowerPoints created to help you better understand, and target, six of the highest value verticals according to InfoTrends.

Let’s get started. Do you have any education clients in your portfolio? If not, you may be missing out. There are over 73,000 education organizations according to the US Census. This 300+ billion dollar industry employs approximately 3.5 million people.

Brought to you by Mohawk MakeReady, this presentation can be used for your internal training purposes.

For most print service providers, their biggest challenge is identifying and capturing new clients--especially in this highly competitive marketplace. One often overlooked strategy is looking to vertical markets for new revenue opportunities. To better assess your capabilities to serve vertical markets, you need to first understand their behaviors and service needs. This presentation on the Education Market is part of a series of PowerPoints created to help you better understand, and target, six of the highest value verticals according to InfoTrends. Let’s get started. Do you have any education clients in your portfolio? If not, you may be missing out. There are over 73,000 education organizations according to the US Census. This 300+ billion dollar industry employs approximately 3.5 million people. Brought to you by Mohawk MakeReady, this presentation can be used for your internal training purposes.

The education market includes specialized establishments that provide instruction and training in a wide variety of subjects. They can be privately owned and operated for profit or nonprofit, or publicly owned. Education services are usually delivered by teachers or instructors and range in delivery from direct learning, Internet, distance learning, and educational institutions. The segments of this market are: Industry Segments (NAICS 61) Elementary and Secondary Schools Junior Colleges Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools Business Schools and Computer and Management Training Technical and Trade Schools Other Schools and Instruction Educational Support Services MakeReady Tip: Take a look in your local area and you’re bound to find an education institute to approach with your services. Do you have a child or family friend enrolled in school? Use these relationships to your advantage.

Understanding the current and upcoming trends for a particular market can help give you insight on activities that may influence their decision to bring on a new vendor. According to a recent study by InfoTrends, these are the top 5 trends for the education market. Any one of these could affect a client’s buying process. For instance, let’s look at the two enrollment growth trends – these could lead to personalized print projects, such as room assignment notifications, class schedules, and parking permits. MakeReady Tip: Take time to understand your target market and where that market is going. It will help you be perceived as intelligent and cognizant of shifts in the market, ultimately providing you with new opportunities to better serve your clients.

Like any other organizations, the education segment faces many challenges that ultimately provide opportunities for print service providers. Two of these primary marketing-related challenges include recruitment and fundraising. As far as recruitment goes, position your company as the outsourced marketing partner for the organization to help alleviate this challenge. Think about what you can offer. Can your company provide managed campaign services? Project management? Targeted e-mail? Fundraising can offer your company one of its most valuable opportunities. It plays to the strength of digital printing and personalization with variable data to a tee. The education segment is usually data rich, so providing ideas on how you can better implement and utilize their data to target users and increase ROI is an effective sell. Be unique. Think out of the box beyond simply variable addressing.

Where is this revenue going now? A recent InfoTrends study indicates that 67% of the business is going to commercial printers, 33% to Office Super Stores, 25% to Franchise Printers, and 50% to self-serve copying and printing services. Two takeaways from these numbers: 1) education clients are using different vendors for different types of jobs and 2) all of these types of print providers utilize digital equipment. Of those surveyed, 39% expect to increase external print spending on promotional material. This is an excellent opportunity to sell the benefits of variable data printing through digital. MakeReady Tip: Sell the value of personalization while focusing on promotional applications.

Education organizations have a wide variety of marketing communications needs. All of these needs provide a tangible opportunity for your company’s services. Here is a list of some of the most common uses as determined by a recent InfoTrends study. Top 5 Marketing Communications e-Mail marketing (77.9%) Printed direct mail (64.8%) Newspaper advertising (52.8%) Printed directory, such as Yellow Pages (47.2%) Signage and point-of-sale advertising (44.5%)

How can your printing business capture some of this business? You need to bring something more than just your capabilities. You need to bring value. One way to differentiate your company is to provide unique materials that enable higher value printed products to be created. Let’s take a look at how Mohawk Bravo Digital Substrates can help you provide this value to your education customers. We discussed printed direct mail and signage as a type of print collateral being produced by some education organizations. Here are some specific examples of how new Mohawk Bravo Digital Substrates can be used for this type of application and environment. Synthetic Materials - Choose any of the moisture, wear resistant PVC or Polyester sheets for durable programs at athletic events. Pressure Sensitive Materials - Use Pressure Sensitive materials to create name tags for volunteers at a college event or wall cling directional signage in arenas. Magnetic Materials - Get a charge out of magnetic materials! Create athletic association magnets for parents to proudly display on their vehicles. Embedded Card Materials - Use these materials for booster club membership cards, game day sports schedules, or discount cards to be used at the university shop. Mohawk Bravo Synthetic Materials are designed for the entire range of digital color production presses including those using high heat to fuse toner as well as HP Indigo ElectroInk. For more information, visit www.mohawkpaper.com/bravo

Now that we’ve discussed tangible applications to sell into this market, let’s take a look at a specific customer case study. Elizabethtown College wanted to expand the membership of young alumni. Their primary goals were to update contact information, grow Facebook participation, identify giving triggers, recruit quality young alumni for future fundraising solicitations, and grow their participation rate. Working with a print service provider, they crafted an integrated campaign using Variable Data Direct Mail, E-mail, Personalized URLs, and Social Media Outreach.

The marketing mix definitely helped play a role in making this campaign a success. Not only did they capture data on new alumni, they also received a contribution from 59% of the alumni who visited the online donation page. Plus, their efforts helped them update and stream their internal database for future initiatives. Customer satisfaction not only makes it easier to gain repeat business, but it can help you win similar business from new clients. Explain the potential ROI of a project to help sell. Use data and real examples to demonstrate how you have helped your clients achieve their marketing goals. MakeReady Tip: Use case studies of your existing clients to help win similar business from new clients, particularly if they are in the same vertical. (This full case study can be found at www.PODi.org.)

The education market provides numerous revenue opportunities for you to capture. It really boils down into these three main needs/trends for this market: Increase in External Print Spending Expected 96% of all educational institutions produce some sort of print publication and a quarter of all marketing spending went to print – EducationPortal.com Education is Pursuing Cross-Media Marketing Channels Print will remain a staple in communicating with prospective students and alumni Social Media use saves schools money – on average schools spend $83 on heavy to moderate social media users and $121 on light to non-users – EducationPortal.com Balanced Mix of Education Print Buyers’ Education Levels Advanced buyers appreciate cross-media and workflow automation Less advanced buyers need tools to ease the process

Digital Printing is changing… and fast. That’s why we created Mohawk MakeReady. A go-to place for guidance, insights and tools to keep you prepared for what’s next. There’s a reason we named this service MakeReady … a little irony, too. Taking a familiar industry term in a new direction. Mohawk MakeReady offers ways for you to make more efficient use of your time, material, people and entrepreneurial energy. To grow your digital printing business, you need to be prepared – with actionable information and tools – so your team can implement best business practices, craft effective sales strategies, and create opportunities to use and promote new high-value products. As a leading manufacturer of digital substrates, Mohawk brings you practical wisdom gained from our experience in sales, marketing, production and operations. With how-to articles on marketing your business, videos on topics like precision sheeting, and PowerPoint presentations showcasing how to identify sales opportunities. All strategies you can put to work today. Talk to us. Let us know what’s on your mind. Mohawk MakeReady. Dedicated to making you ready for the exciting future ahead.

Transcript

1.
A vertical focus for approaching new clients September 2011 Research by InfoTrends 2011

2.
The Market Defined Organizations you’re familiar with The education market includes specialized establishments that provide instruction and training in a wide variety of subjects. They can be privately owned and operated for profit or nonprofit, or publicly owned. Education services are usually delivered by teachers or instructors and range in delivery from direct learning, Internet, distance learning, and educational institutions. Source: InfoTrends 2011

Federal government reform of elementary, secondary, and higher education institutions

Source: InfoTrends Opportunities in the Education Market 2010

4.
Fundraising: Tends to usually be an underlying goal Recruitment: Is usually top-of-mind for universities

5.
Did you know that the average annual external print spend in the education segment is $31,000? According to InfoTrends… Source: InfoTrends Opportunities in the Education Market 2010

6.
So, what are they producing? Education organizations have a wide variety of marketing communications needs. All of these needs provide a tangible opportunity for your company’s services.

E-Mail marketing

Printed direct mail

Newspaper advertising

Print directories

Signage

Point of sale advertising

7.
Bringing More Value One way to differentiate your company is to provide unique materials that enable higher value printed products to be created. Mohawk Bravo Digital Substrates can help you provide this value to your education customers.

10.
Why You Should Consider Pursuing this Market The education market provides many revenue opportunities for you as a print service provider. The opportunities include these key products and services:

Campaign management

Database management

Data-driven personalization

Cross media services

High-quality digital print

Mailing & Fulfillment

11.
Mohawk MakeReady provides practical tools and actionable information for digital printers like you. We can help… Visit: www.MohawkMakeReady.com for more tools, to request a meeting, or to join the community.